“I’ll put it to the club today, but don’t get your hopes up,” he replied.
“Why would I get my hopes up? I don’t care about her, I just think everyone deserves a second chance,” I lied, the lie transparent.
I threw my cigarette to the ground, watching as Belle came out of the apartment building. She walked with her shoulders slumped and her eyes on the ground, and I swallowed at how beautiful her misery was.
“Beast, you’re all fucked up over this girl, and I get why, but it can’t affect the club. You know the rules. And you know what happens to traitors.”
“But she isn’t!” I yelled, my gaze still on Belle. She looked up when I raised my voice, a frown puckering between her eyebrows. I held up a hand, telling her to stay away for a moment, and she nodded and stepped over to the sidewalk behind the car. I lowered my tone when I spoke next. “We brought her into this without telling her the rules. Brother, she never stood a chance and that’s on us—that’s on you and me, not her.”
“You’re right, it is,” Shooter agreed. “We should have warned her.”
I breathed a sigh of relief that he was at least listening to me, and I dragged a hand down my face as he continued.
“I’ll set up a meeting today. We’ll figure something out,” Shooter said. “I need to go, Casa thinks he might have figured out where those two bastards are hiding out.”
A smile crept up my face. “You make sure you give me that address, Prez.”
“Your revenge will be purifying, brother,” he replied, and clicked off the call.
I took another long breath, letting the early afternoon air fill my lungs for what felt like the first time in two days. Belle cleared her throat as she came closer, and I nodded that it was okay to do so.
Standing next to me, she looked up into my face, the sunlight dancing off her dark hair like vibrant rays. She looked goddamn beautiful. Innocent, pure, everything I wasn’t. The hurt was still fierce within my heart and we had a long way to go before shit would be right between us—for one, I’d intended to put a bullet in her head this morning, so that was going to take some figuring out on her part. We’d both hurt each other—sometimes without thinking, other times despite it, but the stupid thing was, neither of us had wanted that…any of it.
Somewhere in the darkness, Belle had found me and brought me back from that barn, and no matter what she’d done or not done, there were no words to describe how grateful I was for that. I just hadn’t realized it until this moment.
Without thinking, I reached out to cup her cheek in my hand, and she leaned into my touch.
“Beast,” she said, my name a murmur on her lips.
I leaned in and pressed my mouth to hers, kissing her, needing her, wanting her.
I kissed Belle with every apology in my heart, already knowing that it wasn’t enough, but trying to prove it to her anyway.
When we pulled out of the kiss, her lips were red and swollen and her eyes full of need and desire, and if today hadn’t already been a pile of shit then I would have grabbed her and sat her down on my lap and fucked her right her in that piece-of-shit car, but I couldn’t.
Things were moving out of our control. Chess pieces were moving into position, readying themselves for battle, and I needed to be on the front line of that.
“Need to get going,” I said, and she nodded, her needy gaze still locked on mine. “Everything go okay with Jenna?”
She nodded again, the name of her godmother drawing her back to reality. “Yeah, I mean, we have some stuff to work through, but she loves me and she only wants the best for me.”
“We still going to get your mom?” I asked. Already hated the bitch and I hadn’t even met her. But I didn’t need to. I knew her kind—popping babies out and then leaving them to raise themselves with barely any concept of what it was to have a family, to have love.
Belle looked away, her gaze going out the window. I hated that; I wanted her eyes locked on mine again.
“Yeah, I don’t really have a choice. They won’t let her out without somewhere to go.” She sighed, like she knew she’d made the second biggest mistake of her life.
I reached over and pressed my rough palm against her cheek again and she turned to look back at me, her eyes looking so sad that it made my chest hurt.
“Hey, what have I said about letting me help you? I’ve got your back, Belle.”
“Even after…”
“Even after all that other bullshit,” I agreed, cutting her off. “I don’t know what this thing is with you and me. I don’t know whether we can make it work. I don’t know if the club will forgive you, and even if they do, I don’t know whether they will ever accept you—fuck, I don’t even know if you really want in on my world…”
“I do!” she replied quickly, cutting me off this time.
“Well, all that being said, I’ve still got your back. You fucked up, big time. There’s no getting away from that. But that was the club’s fault too, for not showing you how shit was handled. All I know for certain is that we’ve both made a fucking mess of this thing, but that ends now.” I let go of her face and looked out the window. Things were so messed up, and it felt like everything was set in our path to keep us apart, but for as long as I could, I’d fight to keep her. I knew that more than I knew anything else right then.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do about my mom. I don’t need or want her in my life. I thought I did. I thought I needed her to find out who I really was. I wanted to know more about me, about who I was and where I came from. I have this bunch of freckles on my inner thigh,” she said.
“I know the ones,” I interrupted, my hand going to her leg, and she smiled properly for the first time in too damn long.
“Those stupid freckles are what started this whole thing. Because I was wondering where I got them from—who I got them from. No one knows who my daddy was. Mom never told anyone and never put his name on my birth certificate. It was spiteful and mean, but I guess that’s just who she is. Anyway, I saw those freckles and I wondered who I got them from, my mom or my dad. And it makes you wonder: all the little things that make a person up, where did they come from? Do I have my mom’s temper? My dad’s fondness for spicy food? Are these his freckles, or hers? And then as if by fate, I got her letter and it just seemed sort of kismet.” She sighed like she’d just spilled her heart out to me.
“Belle, none of those things make up you. The only thing that makes up you is you. It’s the history we have, the people we meet, the choices we make, the paths we choose. Those are what makes us who we are. Not moms or dads, but people and life. Trust me on this one.”
She nodded like she understood, but I wasn’t sure she did, so I pressed further to make my point drive home.
“I grew up in a tiny one-bed apartment that was infested with roaches and had mold on the walls. My mom was never home, and when she was, she wasn’t really there. We never had food in the house, and she couldn’t have cared less if I lived or died. So I left. I got out and never looked back. And it was then that I started to live. It was then that I started to become the man I wanted to be. Without her.” I squeezed her thigh. “The person you are is because of you, Belle, not from your mom or dad. It’s just you.”